How to Survive a Hard Drive Crash or Laptop Theft

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Few things in life can create as much frustration or panic as a
dying hard drive. Just consider what's stored on the typical home
computer -- tax and financial records, thousands of photos, that
huge project for your child’s history class and other
irreplaceable documents.

But the
hard drive isn’t the only cause of lost data. Every year
thousands of laptops are lost, stolen or forgotten at
airport-security checkpoints. Vital documents saved on flash
drives accidentally get erased.

The bottom line is that as computing becomes more mobile, it gets
easier to lose data – and yet most of us don’t have a computer
disaster-recovery plan in place.

Why bother having such a plan? It’s simple, said Jennifer Walzer,
CEO of Backup My Info!, a New York City-based online
backup service.

“The chance that your computer will fail is 100 percent
guaranteed,” said Walzer. “It’s just a matter of when it will
happen.”

Walzer recommends making a list of all of the important files you
want protected. Once you know what they are and how much storage
space they take up, it’s time to consider the available backup
methods.

“There are many options for people who want to protect their
data. Some are very basic, like an
external hard drive, while others are more sophisticated,
such as a redundant, off-site data center,” said Todd Esplin of
Seattle-based Mozy, one of the best-known online backup services.

“Disaster-recovery solutions are akin to insurance plans,” said
Esplin. “The best solution really depends on the level of
protection each person feels like they need.”

The key elements and questions to consider when making a solid
backup plan include:

Security: Is that data secure when and where
it's currently being stored, and will it be more or less so after
it's backed up to the storage site?

Automation: Can the backup process be automated?

Accessibility: Can I easily access my backed-up
data when I need it?

Overall Cost: Will the cost allow me to continue
to back up my data in the long run?

Online backup services blend the higher-level protection of
off-site storage, normally affordable only to corporations, with
the affordability and automation of basic, local external hard
drives.

Other services such as Boca Raton, Fla.-based Lock Your Docs!, a
partner of Backup My Info!, provide a secure online lockbox to
which you can upload important documents -- financial insurance
information, credit-card numbers, passports, drivers licenses --
and access them from anywhere.

The services aren’t a budget-breaker, either, as most plans cost
$100 or less per year.

Not ready to shell out for an online service? A simpler option is
to regularly back up your essential data to one or more external
hard drives or writeable DVDs. But you’ll have to either get
software that performs regular backups, or remind yourself to do
it manually.

It’s also best to keep a backup copy away from home, for example
at work, in case of fire, flood or other unforeseen event.

And what if disaster does happen? With a properly executed plan,
recovery is possible, says David Friend, CEO and co-founder of
Boston-based online-backup industry leader Carbonite.

“If you have backed up your data online, it’s easy to recover it
through a few steps that restore your files to the exact places
they belong on your computer,” explained Friend. “All you need is
your computer and an Internet connection.”

If you don’t have a backup plan in place, however, it’s a
different story. Lost files aren’t always recoverable, especially
if the computer was lost or stolen. Extracting data from a dead
hard drive can cost thousands of dollars.

“Now that protection technologies and Internet access are easily
accessible for online backup services (meaning anyone can sign up
for a backup service online), anyone who has valuable data should
be backing it up,” said Mozy’s Esplin. “For about the same price
as a lunch, you can protect your data for an entire month.”